Australia: The Stolen Generations

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Australia mini-series, episode 154) is a short documentary about the Stolen Generations. It starts from Bringing Them Home, the 1997 report that collected the stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were taken from their families as children, between about 1910 and 1970, and sent to children's homes, to missions or to white families. It ends on the national apology that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, made in Parliament on 13 February 2008, watched by crowds on big screens, and on National Sorry Day, every 26 May; the subject is stated plainly, and no picture shows a child who was taken. The narration is in the past simple, with passive forms (Today, these children are called the Stolen Generations) and relative clauses; no grammar point is taught. It is a listening comprehension episode: learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 7 on facts and 3 on vocabulary (apology, Torres Strait Islanders and the Stolen Generations).

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script; there is no lesson plan. The pupil pack and the teacher pack (answers highlighted) are one A4 page each, with the text, three pictures (a drawing of an empty road leading away from a family home, a photo of the former Bomaderry Aboriginal Children's Home, the photo of the crowd at Federation Square in Melbourne watching the apology on a big screen), the key words and the 10 questions; a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key come with them. The text ends with an open question (Why do you think saying sorry was important for the families?). Learners should know the past simple of common verbs and be able to read dates and large numbers. The script explains its new words as it goes (Torres Strait Islanders, apology).

Curriculum alignment

Tagged c4-travel-and-migration ("Voyages et migrations") and c4-encountering-others ("Rencontre avec l'autre"), Cycle 4 (3e). The episode targets CEFR level B1-.